News: Civil society grievance against ExxonMobil and Chevron: A public record

May 1, 2018.
Source: PWYP-US

This page serves as a public record of the background and
evidence of the civil society complaint, as well as how the grievance process is
being executed by the EITI Secretariat. A timeline is included
below with relevant key events.

In February 2018, civil society organizations, including PWYP-US,
filed a formal grievance with
the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Board, documenting
violations of the EITI rules by ExxonMobil and Chevron and calling for the
companies to be held accountable and removed from the board. Signatories of
the letter included civil society representatives that served on the now
defunct
USEITI multi stakeholder group. The
letter documents
specific violations
of the the EITI Code of Conduct by ExxonMobil and Chevron that should lead
to their removal from the EITI Board.

Background

ExxonMobil, Chevron and the American Petroleum Institute (API) have been
opposed to the Cardin-Lugar provision (Section 1504 of 2010 Dodd-Frank
Act), a bipartisan anticorruption safeguard, for nearly a decade. The two
companies, working with and through API (both companies are members of
API), actively lobbied members of Congress to prevent passage of the
Cardin-Lugar law, to repeal it and to weaken or repeal its rules on several
occasions. Former U.S. Secretary of State and former CEO of ExxonMobil,
Rex Tillerson
, personally lobbied against the Cardin-Lugar provision before it became
law in 2010. The companies sought to undermine the effectiveness and
implementation of the Cardin-Lugar provision, including support for an API
lawsuit
to repeal the 2012 SEC rule, and by submitting comments to the
SEC calling for a weak rule. In early 2017, ExxonMobil and Chevron lobbied
for the
repeal
of the 2016 SEC rule –
lobbying disclosures
are available here
.

ExxonMobil
and Chevron’s
sustained opposition to the Cardin-Lugar provision directly conflicts with
the companies’
corporate
policies
in support of the EITI and transparency. The two companies have served on
the EITI board for many years,
and Chevron has
served continuously since its inception.

● The
EITI Standard
is expanded to require public, company-by-company, project-level reporting
in all EITI member countries.

December 22, 2015

● ExxonMobil and Chevron refuse to report their Federal corporate income
taxes in the
2015 USEITI report
(p. 68).

June 27, 2016

● The Securities and Exchange Commission publishes a
strong rule
to implement the Cardin-Lugar provision (also known as Section 1504 of the
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act).

November 18, 2016

● ExxonMobil and Chevron refuse to report their Federal corporate income
taxes in the
2016 USEITI report
(p. 85).

2017

January 10-12

● A USEITI reporting improvement workshop is held in Denver.
Representatives from industry, civil society, and government are present.
The public
notes
from the meeting include the following:

“Section 1504 reporting is necessary to ensure reporting by covered
companies meets the requirements of the EITI Standard.
. . .
The group discussed the intrinsic nature of Section 1504 to the USEITI
process and its equivalence to implementing legislation. As such, should
1504 be undone, USEITI would not have a path forward to implementation and
validation.”

● The American Petroleum Institute sends a
letter
to Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI-1) and Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi (D-CA-12) expressing strong support for H.J. Res. 41.

● Ahead of the vote, API also sends a
fact sheet
with erroneous arguments to lobby members of Congress to vote in favor of
H.J. Res. 41. The fact sheet alleges that API’s support for transparency
was established because “API itself has been heavily involved in the implementation of U.S. EITI through our membership on the U.S. EITI’s
multi-stakeholder group.”

● The USEITI MSG meeting is held in Washington, DC. Members of civil
society voiced their grave concern about the role of MSG member
representing the American Petroleum Institute (API) in supporting the CRA.
Civil society made the case that API’s support for repeal of Section 1504
contradicted its support for the MSG’s
consensus-based decision regarding project-level payment disclosure
. During the meeting, the Designated Federal Officer cut off public comment
and MSG member discussion regarding Section 1504, and ended the meeting
early. Based on the controversy around Section 1504 and the CRA, government
members of the MSG sought and received support to shorten the February
meeting to one day.

● USEITI CSO members issue a
public letter
to underscore concerns about API undermining the goals of USEITI by
supporting H.J. Res.41 and objecting to USEITI preventing civil society
from discussing this at the February 1 USEITI MSG meeting.

● A Department of the Interior (DOI) official informs members of the USEITI
MSG that implementation subcommittee meetings are canceled through March
15.

March 9

● On a phone call, a DOI official informs civil society members that the
June and November MSG meetings will be canceled and that there would be no
path forward to EITI validation by April 2018, the country’s validation
deadline, because oil companies were refusing to disclose their taxes.

● USEITI CSO members issue a
statement
seeking clarification from DOI Secretary Ryan Zinke regarding the
Department’s intentions for EITI implementation in the U.S. The statement
requests that DOI is accountable to U.S. commitments to the EITI Standard,
USEITI Charter, and the USEITI Terms of Reference and indicates the CSO
group’s eagerness to continue the activities of the USEITI MSG provided
that it is reinstated publicly, that the scheduled meetings are
re-established, and that a plan to move forward is implemented.

● The Department of the Interior sends a
letter
to Fredrik Reinfeldt, Chair of the EITI Board announcing the
withdrawal of U.S. candidacy for EITI
. The letter makes the false claim that U.S. law prevents implementation of
the EITI Standard.

2018

February 7

● USEITI CSO members send a
letter
to Chair Reinfeldt regarding violations of the EITI Code of Conduct by
ExxonMobil and Chevron and call for the companies’ immediate removal from the EITI Board.

March 23

● The EITI secertariat legal counsel provide an analysis of civil society’s grievance. The legal analysis is communicated in a letter to the EITI Secretariat dated March 23, 2018.

April 3

● Signatories of the February 7 letter meet in Washington, DC with Chair Reinfeldt and Jonas
Moberg, Executive Director of the EITI Secretariat, to discuss the call
for ExxonMobil and Chevron to be removed from the EITI Board.

May 30

● The EITI Secretariat publishes a statement on its website in response to civil society’s grievance against Exxon and Chevron. The statement is also available here.